Heroes and Villains
by Runi-chan
Summary: ficlet challenge inspired by supaslim's wonderful Watchmen stuff.
1. Call and Answer

Inspired by the talented supaslim, here's my go at it. (since fanfiction is finally not being ridiculous)

The rules of the challenge are:  
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.  
2. Turn your music player on and turn it on random/shuffle.  
3. Write a drabblet/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterward! No matter how whacked out your drabble is. :)  
4. Do ten of these, then post them. (I'll probably do more, because these are great writing warm ups)

* * *

**Call and Answer: Barenaked Ladies**

No matter how they tried, nothing about this resurgence of the "Crimebusters" was the same as before. There was hurt, betrayal.

And Rorschach was not the same, ever since…

Dan pushed the thought from his mind, holding the Comedian's pin in his hand, Rorschach long since gone. Something more than the bitterness of losing a 'co-worker' lingered in that monotone, gravel voice.

It wouldn't register until later that Daniel Dreiberg was much more than that to the strange masked man. Daniel was a pillar, something steady and solid in the man's slowly crumbling mind. When he had gone, the man had nothing concrete but the difference between scum and innocence.

And yet, even when his mind seemed to go, Rorschach would occasionally show up, as if trying to make sense of what had happened. To perhaps reform the friendship, or…make amends.

Wordless, it slipped from both minds, better off forgotten.


	2. Words that We Couldn't Say

**Words that We Couldn't Say: The Seatbelts**

(Finally, I got to write about Silhouette! I love this character, though she's given so little face time)

She noticed quite early the looks, the snide remarks, but chose to ignore them. She loved who she loved, and stepping out on V-Day took every ounce of courage in her lithe frame.

Silhouette notices Hooded Justice is reserved, unresponsive to Sally on his arm, while his eyes are across the room on Captain Metropolis.

But they stay, while she goes. Quietly, without the clamor and noise of the Comedian's exit. Like a respectable woman, she says nothing bad about her former associates, memories too sweet in her mind.

She fights that night. She loses. Brief gunfire, and she is watching her lover die as she does.

A sort of sweet final gesture, unintended.

Together in the next life, if not this one.


	3. Los Angeles, I'm Yours

**Los Angeles, I'm Yours: The Decemberists **(I'm warning you guys, I have a ton of their songs and several, especially 'The Infanta', remind me of Watchmen). I also may use this song again later if it comes back in my shuffle (because sometimes will just cycle the same twenty or thirty songs), because I've got another idea that would actually involve Eddie and Sally and California)

Daniel Dreiberg often wonders what it was like before, in the heyday of the masked hero and villain. When the city was alive and happy, and didn't hate them so.

Hollis shakes his head and answers,

"Things change"

And they do. Hollis watched as it slowly took away his friends (can't quite say comrades, not with the threat of the reds), people he cared about.

He watched poor Byron drink away the pain, crack under the pressure. Watched Sally smile with emptiness behind her eyes, trapped in a marriage where she didn't love the man (and the man she loved couldn't ever take down his defenses so that they'd have some semblance of a happy ending).

He watched as Ursula walked calmly away, and heard later (a knot in his throat) what had happened.

Hollis isn't quite sure if it got to him as it did to them, but he sees the city's effects on the youth.

On Dan's 'partner' Rorschach, who could have been, for all intents and purposes, the city, grime and all, personified. This was before the Keene act, when he was a brilliant young man with the tenacity of terrier and the smartest wit.

Still, though, Hollis muses as Dan departs in the rain, off to his night rounds (and so much later, just home), he's never left. Written a tellall book, exposed everything he knew and loved and hated about the city.

And he still was here, in New York City, watching it spin into madness.


	4. Wuthering Heights

**_Wuthering Heights, by Cuban Cigar Crisis_**

_Author's note: I kind of sort of love this song, though I hated reading the actual book. also--I know I've been writing ton about Rorschach, and I'm trying to diversify (second and third chapters were about The Silhouette and the first Nite Owl, respectively), but I think because he's got such a different background than the other characters, there's more there to spur a story)._

_Warning; NiteOwlII Rorschach._

* * *

Daniel knows when Rorschach's been there. Windows are usually broken, or locks kicked in. He runs his hands over the busted lock and sighs; more worried over fixing the jamb (again). He had given the man a key a long time before, but the inkblotted vigilante had cited there were faster ways to get in.

When they had been partners, Daniel came home every night almost expecting a mess in the kitchen and the small man curled up on his couch. At first he'd tried to get Rorschach to stop, but when this proved dangerous--Rorschach came back to Dan's once with a bullet in his arm, courtesy of the Comedian, another time back to Dan's in flash of blue light--he'd given up and let it be. When Rorschach had shown up bloody and broken, Daniel was the only one who could get close enough to him to help him fix himself up. Countless times Daniel had washed up wounds and felt muscles tense beneath his fingers as he sewed up his partner, almost marveling at just how muscular this small man was.

(And tried not to notice how close they were, and did not perceive that the tension in Rorschach was not because of physical pain)

The only one Rorschach would trust around his sleeping form at night.

Daniel often would glimpse the prone form on his couch (still masked), and wondered what sort of man was behind the mask, and who cared about him besides the Crimebusters? Then he would dismiss this and try not to act like a mother hen.

It never worked.

And then the visits sputtered, Rorschach only dropping by to stitch himself up on the rarest of occasion, and almost never stayed. When Daniel had quit, the smaller man stood silent, and the second Nite Owl could almost feel the disappointment in the hidden stare.

When he had quit, Daniel stood firmly, but could not keep up his front for long. Rorschach merely nodded at his explanations (and avoided any sort of touch) and the barest hint of sadness hit the air as he disappeared into the night. Absently, Daniel looked back at his costume, and at his friend's retreating back. Something had shifted and Daniel wasn't entirely sure if he'd wanted it to.

Once, they'd been partners. Now Rorschach was wanted, and Daniel felt pulled back into the haze of being a 'superhero'. As they travel in the Owl Ship, Rorschach's silent, Daniel can't keep quiet. Shifting ink greets Daniel's eyes and, quietly, he wishes things had gone differently.

He wishes 1975 and everything that had happened that year never existed.

Earlier, Rorschach is insisting Daniel's gone soft, especially with _women._ He is right, which is perhaps why Daniel's so irritated. He doesn't notice the hesitation in his former partner's voice, the curt, controlled movements.

The lack of contact with him.


	5. Odalisque

**Odalisque, by the Decemberists**. _(I told you guys I liked have a new album out, and it's SO GOOD. I think I might 'break' the rules of this challenge and pick this song out again to write another Dan/Rorschach thing, but I felt like maybe it would be too soon after "Wuthering Heights")  
_

* * *

It's quiet in the hallways now where once the voices of heroes filtered through. If the walls could speak they'd spin tales of patriotic men and women who, deep down were much worse off than they'd ever say.

It's calm on the streets where once a strange man with an inkblot mask used to scale fire escapes and take out thugs, leaving a trail of broken and bleeding bodies behind him.

It's calm through the old garage owned by Hollis Mason--up for sale since his murder.

New York seems quite content in their peace now, unaware of that thrum of impatience below the surface.

Of the truth lurking in the hidden words of a mad man.

Dan Dreiberg is no longer Nite Owl nor Dan Dreiberg. Laurie "Jupiter" and Silk Spectre II do not exist.

There is no trace of Doctor Manhattan.

The Comedian's dead.

Rorschach is gone, they think. No sign of his distinctive mask anywhere.

Adrian Veidt stands above it all.

Yet, something feels like it's missing. Like the last vestiges of something essential have bled and drained onto the streets.

A year before, the streets were trash-filled and full of disease.

Now it is pristine, and yet, has never felt dirtier.


	6. Puttin' On The Ritz

**Puttin on the Ritz--Taco.**  
_(I couldn't resist,I really couldn't)_

* * *

Nelson was quite sure that under his mask, Hooded Justice was frowning. He had to hide a smile at the memory of the man's real face.

"What?"

"_Niet_. That's ridiculous."

"Oh, but..."

"Captain," Hooded Justice stresses, "I don't see the point in attending a benefit for something like a museum. I..."

"Keep to yourself, I know. But Sally's going to be there, and By--I mean, oh, you know. Everyone is going. No masks, even."

"I have to?"

"Urm, well," his hand rests on the stronger man's arm for only a moment, but something is definitely there, "it would be nice. I don't quite want to show up and have no one there to talk to."

"You said Sally was going," a note of suspicion, trying to catch the man in a lie. Under the mask (unseen), the eyes meet

"Well, yes."

A moment of silence, and Nelson Gardner (alias for Captain Metropolis) is unsure of what his fellow crimefighter was thinking. Across the room, Hooded Justice sees Silhouette playfully flirting with Sally, and shakes his head. She should be more careful.

"...fine."

Captain Metropolis grins, trying to imagine the rugged man before him in a tuxedo.

The night of the benefit is spent in quiet anonymity, and between dancing with some very beautiful ladies, Nelson Gardner and the man known as Hooded Justice have whole conversations in minute glimpse of each other across the room.


End file.
